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Topic: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings  (Read 12721 times)

Offline kalospiano

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I was trying to make a list of the future pieces I want to study, in order from the easiest to the hardest and I noticed a huge difference of the alleged rating between the Henle website and the Piano Street list.

For instance, Albeniz's Tango and Malaguena are rated 3 out of 9 in Henle's classification, i.e. not even intermediate, just upper beginner; Granada is 4. On Pianostreet, these are concert pieces, grade 8 or 8+ :o  

Another example, Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes are grade 1.5 / 2 on Henle, i.e. super beginner, but on Pianostreet they are grade 5, i.e. I'd say upper intermediate (they both seem too extreme to me).

other relevant differences:
Debussy's Arabeque: H=4 - PS=7
Debussy's The Little Negro: H=2.5 - PS=7
Liszt's Paysage: H=6 - PS=8+
Liszt's Liebestraum: H=6.5 - PS=8+

and so on...
what is going on?  ??? How is it possible to have such huge differences? Do you have an idea about which ratings are more correct?

Offline iansinclair

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #1 on: May 26, 2017, 09:50:49 PM
Hard to say -- but in some of the pieces you list the difficulty lies not in the technique involved (Granada is a good example, so is Liszt's Liebestraum) but in the musical interpretation, and that might account for at least part of the difference.
Ian

Offline brogers70

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #2 on: May 27, 2017, 01:21:51 AM
My impression is that the PS ratings don't distinguish difficulties well at the higher levels. There's a huge range of technical difficulties among pieces that are rated PS 8 and 8+. Henle may be giving lower ratings to somewhat harder pieces than PS in order to leave room at the top of the range to make distinctions between the very difficult, the extremely difficult, and the superhumanly difficult.

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #3 on: May 27, 2017, 02:52:31 AM
Difficulty rating is not easily measurable, it is not really mathematically accurate. You even find these discrepancies in examinations that group pieces into certain grade levels. Looking at the bigger picture, it is generally not helpful to consider the difficulty level of a piece without judging it for yourself, you simply put barriers in front of yourself before you even begin.

There is a great story I remember hearing about a maths student at university:
George Dantzig recounted his feat in a 1986 interview for the College Mathematics Journal:

It happened because during my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day at one of [Jerzy] Neyman’s classes. On the blackboard there were two problems that I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework — the problems seemed to be a little harder than usual. I asked him if he still wanted it. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever. About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o’clock, [my wife] Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: “I’ve just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication.” For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard that I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.

A year later, when I began to worry about a thesis topic, Neyman just shrugged and told me to wrap the two problems in a binder and he would accept them as my thesis.

The second of the two problems, however, was not published until after World War II. It happened this way. Around 1950 I received a letter from Abraham Wald enclosing the final galley proofs of a paper of his about to go to press in the Annals of Mathematical Statistics. Someone had just pointed out to him that the main result in his paper was the same as the second “homework” problem solved in my thesis. I wrote back suggesting we publish jointly. He simply inserted my name as coauthor into the galley proof.

https://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp
"The biggest risk in life is to take no risk at all."
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Offline kalospiano

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #4 on: May 27, 2017, 01:20:51 PM
I agree with everything: difficulty is not easily measurable, PS does not distinguish very well the difficulties at higher levels, and it's always better to judge by ourself.

Still, considering this, I would expect only slight differences and some confusion in the middle-level pieces. Here, instead, the same music is being considered as for beginners and for concert pianists at the same time, and that kinda baffles me.

I think most beginners would know that there's no need to have a look a Mazeppa to judge whether if it's good for them or not.
But for stuff like Malaguena or The Little Negro, these rankings can be quite confusing.

btw, lost, that's a cool story. I guess trying the pieces out myself is indeed the only solution here.

Offline feddera

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #5 on: May 27, 2017, 03:22:56 PM
I think the PS-ratings are based on the ABRSM grade-levels, which go from 1-8. Beyond grade 8 they have three diploma-levels. Those pieces are just given the grade 8+ on PS.

Henle created their own rating-system that goes from 1-9, where 9 is given to the absolute hardest pieces, corresponding to ABRSM's final diploma-level.

As far as I can tell, it looks like grade 5 on the Henle-system is roughly equivalent to grade 8 on ABRSM.
It's kind of like comparing feet and inches to meters and centimeters... it's two different scales.

Offline beethovenfan01

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #6 on: May 29, 2017, 05:02:04 AM
It's kind of like comparing feet and inches to meters and centimeters... it's two different scales.

Yeah, I agree. And I also think the PianoStreet system is sadly lacking for most pieces. I'm working through a syllabus that goes 1-10, but 10 maxes out somewhere around Fantasie Impromptu and the third movement of Moonlight--it is sadly lacking for most of the concert repertoire that I do--but a 10 for OMTA (Oregon Music Teacher's Association) Syllabus is equivalent to a Grade 8 ABRSM, I believe.

Now, about the Henle--I think a 1-8 or 1-9 grading is ridiculous if it's being used the way you want to use it--even 1-10 or 1-12 falls short. What would be better is a detailed scale that gives levels to different aspects of a piece--in which technical demands are only one consideration. But even this would be sadly subjective, useful only as a reference or hint at what to do next.

One piece can be very easy for one person, but very difficult for another. An example of this is most of Bach's work. One of my piano-playing friends loves Beethoven and is very good at it. I, on the other hand, while I love Beethoven, have a harder time getting past the notes and into interpretation. Conversely, I love Chopin equally, but I have a greater feel for it, and Chopin comes much more naturally to me. Thus I am able to attempt some very advanced Chopin with reasonable success, but equal Beethoven with not so much. For him, it's switched. However, on this subject, I think it will all even out it the end ...

Divergent topic, I know, but my point is that difficulty is relative. Something that is rated by one person or scale to be a Grade 7, 8, or higher may turn out to be easy for you, but challenging for another. It's all subjective.
Practicing:
Bach Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue
Beethoven Sonata Op. 10 No. 1
Shostakovich Preludes Op. 34
Scriabin Etude Op. 2 No. 1
Liszt Fantasie and Fugue on BACH

Offline geoffhuang

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #7 on: May 30, 2017, 07:40:18 AM
I think the PS-ratings are based on the ABRSM grade-levels, which go from 1-8. Beyond grade 8 they have three diploma-levels. Those pieces are just given the grade 8+ on PS.

Henle created their own rating-system that goes from 1-9, where 9 is given to the absolute hardest pieces, corresponding to ABRSM's final diploma-level.

As far as I can tell, it looks like grade 5 on the Henle-system is roughly equivalent to grade 8 on ABRSM.
It's kind of like comparing feet and inches to meters and centimeters... it's two different scales.

Going to add off this. If your skill level is on the lower end, use PS ratings, because they spread their easier repertoire ratings from 1-8 (but all of the "hard" stuff will be lumped together into 8+ even if there is a vast difference in difficulty). If your skill level is on the higher end, use Henle ratings, because you're actually able to see slight differences in rating between higher level repertoire instead of just 8+.

Offline beethovenfan01

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #8 on: May 30, 2017, 04:57:05 PM
Yeah, good explanation, too!
Practicing:
Bach Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue
Beethoven Sonata Op. 10 No. 1
Shostakovich Preludes Op. 34
Scriabin Etude Op. 2 No. 1
Liszt Fantasie and Fugue on BACH

Offline ianw

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Re: PS / Henle - enormous differences in difficulty ratings
Reply #9 on: June 09, 2017, 09:05:10 PM
You could check these against the database at www.pianosyllabus.com, which uses a range of graded syllabuses to arrive at some kind of consensus for each piece.
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